Last Tuesday I had an interview with Aflac for an MBA marketing position. I thought everything went great. I wore my most conservative black skirt suit, recited my well-rehearsed answers to behavioral interview questions, avoided my verbal ticks (that I’m now conscious of, thanks to mock interviews). I thought the whole thing went swimmingly. I left feeling exhilarated and confident. I had it in the bag. Or so I thought.
I liken waiting to hear back from Aflac to waiting for a phone call after a seemingly great first date. You thought that the date went great, but apparently he thought otherwise and he never called. I want to be the psycho girl who calls and asks why, but I am trying to accept the fact that maybe they’re just not that into me.
Because I have a healthy self-image, the rejection hasn’t affected me too much. I wanted that internship. I wanted it badly. But you know, if they don’t want me, I don’t want them. No hard feelings. I was so overconfident that last weekend when I was walking around downtown I popped into one of my favorite Athens stores, Helix, just to browse and found these adorable note-cards with ducks on them that were strikingly similar to the Aflac duck. I bought a set of them smugly thinking, “Ooh, I’ll send these as thank-you notes after my second round interviews.” I am going to give them to a good friend who actually made it to the second round.
My search continues. My confidence, while still high, is probably at a more appropriate level. In the long run, it’s a good thing that I wasn’t called back. Aflac was my first interview so if I’d made it to the second round and eventually received an offer, my perception of job hunting would likely be skewed, thus setting me up for disappointment later. Rejection builds character.
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Thursday, February 19, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Flashback
Having earned my undergraduate degree from UGA, I have a sense of sentimentalism and almost déjà vu being back on campus for my MBA. But even more than that is the amusing dynamic I’ve noticed as a part of a full-time program. My friends, it’s high school all over again.
Obviously not in the curriculum and course load, but certainly in the social sense, the experience is a retro one. Starting out as a first-year this August, I felt like a high school freshman. I was excited and nervous and didn’t really know what was going on. No matter what the most put-together, outwardly confident people projected or claimed, they were in the same boat as I.
If first-years are freshman, then second-years are of course the seniors. The 11-month students are somewhere in between. Don’t be put-off if high school was hell. It’s like Disney Channel high school. The seniors help the newbies find their classes, and go out of their way to be nice to them. The second-year students are a great asset for learning the right courses to take, how to handle assignments, etc. They’re also the starting point of your MBA network.
. The classroom dynamic has a high school feeling to it too. We all have our close-knit groups of friends and our unofficially assigned seats. We have the students that know the answer to every question, the students who think they know the answer to every question, and that one student who brings the whole class to sharply inhale when he’s called on – you never know what will come out of his mouth.
In a class of 56 it’s only natural to have groups within the aggregate, but I have to say that, as a class unit, we are a collegial one. Maybe it’s the high school cheerleader in me but I truly have a unique fondness for these classmates of mine. Even the ones who aren’t my favorite, I can see in them the value they are adding to my experience here.
To me, the social aspect of this graduate program is the most important. Yes, the courses are great and I’m learning a lot, but there are so many ways to learn accounting, financial statement analysis, economics, etc., besides attending a full-time MBA program. It’s the human interaction that I value so much, be it with professors or classmates or other staff members. In such a technologically advanced environment, where people type more than they talk to one another, the value of any face-to-face experience is growing exponentially . Read more!
Obviously not in the curriculum and course load, but certainly in the social sense, the experience is a retro one. Starting out as a first-year this August, I felt like a high school freshman. I was excited and nervous and didn’t really know what was going on. No matter what the most put-together, outwardly confident people projected or claimed, they were in the same boat as I.
If first-years are freshman, then second-years are of course the seniors. The 11-month students are somewhere in between. Don’t be put-off if high school was hell. It’s like Disney Channel high school. The seniors help the newbies find their classes, and go out of their way to be nice to them. The second-year students are a great asset for learning the right courses to take, how to handle assignments, etc. They’re also the starting point of your MBA network.
. The classroom dynamic has a high school feeling to it too. We all have our close-knit groups of friends and our unofficially assigned seats. We have the students that know the answer to every question, the students who think they know the answer to every question, and that one student who brings the whole class to sharply inhale when he’s called on – you never know what will come out of his mouth.
In a class of 56 it’s only natural to have groups within the aggregate, but I have to say that, as a class unit, we are a collegial one. Maybe it’s the high school cheerleader in me but I truly have a unique fondness for these classmates of mine. Even the ones who aren’t my favorite, I can see in them the value they are adding to my experience here.
To me, the social aspect of this graduate program is the most important. Yes, the courses are great and I’m learning a lot, but there are so many ways to learn accounting, financial statement analysis, economics, etc., besides attending a full-time MBA program. It’s the human interaction that I value so much, be it with professors or classmates or other staff members. In such a technologically advanced environment, where people type more than they talk to one another, the value of any face-to-face experience is growing exponentially . Read more!
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